Constant Viewer: Traitor and Babylon A.D.

Traitor is a slightly better than average suspense thriller with a significantly better than average performance by Don Cheadle in the lead role. Sadly, however, the same cannot be said of his co-star, Guy Pierce, whose American accent isn’t too awful until it is revealed through dialog along the way that he’s supposed to be a Southerner, too. Pierce is a good actor, but we might consider going back to those halcyon days when honest-to-goodness American actors, or at least Canadian ringers, were cast in such roles. Constant Viewer knows all about the wonderfully talented Hugh Laurie in House and all that, but enough is enough.

CV suspects Traitor may slip in and out of your local cineplex before you notice it was there, as it was not produced by one of the major studios and received precious little pre-release advertising. As the contemporary crop of Middle Eastern terrorists versus U.S. intelligence agency films go, Traitor is a perfectly respectable entry. If you like such movies but you waited to see it on DVD, though, you wouldn’t miss much at all.

* * * * * * * * * *

If you waited to see Babylon A.D. on DVD you wouldn’t miss much, either. Then again, that’s equally true if you don’t bother seeing it at all. Vin Diesel turns in an acceptable Vin Diesel performance in this hyperactive but unengaging road movie. The road in question leads from Russia over the Bering Straits, across which Diesel’s character must transport a young woman (Mélanie Thierry) and her governess (Michelle Yeoh) from Mongolia to Manhattan. There are nice performances in comparatively small parts here by Charlotte Rampling and Gérard Depardieu, but the plot is so tissue thin and the directing so uneven and distracting their efforts are largely wasted. As was CV’s time.